Italian postcard. Publicity still for Ragazze d'oggi/Girls of Today (Luigi Zampa, 1955).
Michael Nicholas Salvatore Bongiorno, better known as Mike Bongiorno, was born 26 May 1924 in New York and died 8 September 2009 in Monte Carlo, Monaco. He was an Italo-American journalist and television host. For the history of Italian television he has been an institution as Italy’s famous quiz master between the 1950s to the 1980s. As such he played himself in various films too. Even if he lived in Italy for most of his life, he kept his American nationality until he turned 79.
Mike Bongiorno was of Italo-American descent, his paternal grandfather being a merchant who emigrated from Mezzojuso in Sicily. While he was a child his parents divorced and his mother took him to her hometown Turin, where he visited college. All his life he remained a fan of Juventus, Turin’s soccer club. During the Second World War he was not mobilised thanks to his American nationality, so he dropped his studies and joined the Italian resistance as go-between the Italian partisans and the Allies in Switzerland . He was captured and escaped execution because of his American passport, but stayed in for six months at the San Vittore prison of Milan, and was then deported German concentration camps. Early 1945 he was liberated even before war ended, thanks to an exchange between war prisoners. Bongiorno went back to New York, but established himself in Italy in 1952, where he became the most popular television host form the earliest days of the medium on, working for the national public broadcasting company RAI, and starting with the programme Arrivi e partenze (1953).
In the mid-1950s Bongiorno acted in various films. First in Luigi Zampa’s comedy Ragazze d'oggi (1955), starring Marisa Allasio. In the same year Bongiorno re-enacted himself in the film Il motive in maschera (dir. Stefano Canzio), based on Bongiorno’s popular homonymous radio show. Next followed a lead in Guido Malatesta’s comedy I milliardari (1956), and a part in the film Il prezzo della gloria, starring Gabriele Ferzetti, directed by newcomer Antonio Musu and shot in the province of Puglia, in South-East Italy. Bongiorno acted in a scene shot at Taranto, where his character has car trouble. In the 1950s Bongiorno was also visible in several ‘fotoromanzi’.
From 1955 to 1959 Bongiorno ran the first Italian television quiz Lascia o raddoppia?, based on the French Quitte ou double ?, which again was based on an American quiz. Buongorno became Italy’s quiz master ‘par excellence’. Italian writer and semiologist Umberto Eco even dedicated a famous essay to him: Fenomenologia di Mike Bongiorno (1963). This also affected Bongiorno’s film acting, who from the 1950s on was regularly visible as quiz master in Totò lascia o raddoppia? (Camillo Mastrocinque 1958) with Totò, Giudizio universale (1961) by Vittorio De Sica and with Vittorio Gassman, Fernandel and Alberto Sordi, C'eravamo tanto amati (1974) by Ettore Scola – in which one of the characters (played by Stefano Satta Flores) is a candidate in Lascia o raddoppia , Sogni mostruosamente proibiti (1982) with Alida Valli and Eccezzziunale… veramente (1982) again with Sandrelli.
After Lascia o raddoppia followed the quizzes Campanile sera (1960), Rischiatutto (1970) and La fiera dei sogni. From 1963 on he also presented the Festival of San Remo for over a decade. In 1979 Buongiorno presented his first show for commercial television: I sogni nel cassetto, produced by Telemilano, which after became Canale 5. His last RAI quiz show was Flash (1980/1982), after which he completely moved over to Mediaset, the television group of Silvio Berlusconi. Afterwards followed Telequiz Bis (1981) Superflash (1982), Pentathlon (1985), Telemike (1987) and La ruota della fortuna (1989). In 2000 he co-presented the animal programme Qua la zampa. For the Retequattro channel he presented two quizzes for youngsters: Genius and Il migliore. Bongiorno was married three times and was rewarded with a doctorate honoris causa at the university IULM of Milan in August 2007.
For decades Mike Bongiorno, who always opened his programmes with his famous « Allegria ! », was known everywhere. Also known were his problems with finding the right quiz papers, his endearing old-fashioned Italian, but also his rages against technicians and candidates during his shows, even in live recordings. His mistakes were proverbial, in particular during La ruota della fortuna, and caused for parody. During one quiz he asked who was this Mr. Paolovi? Meant was Paolo VI (pope Paul VI). Imitation and parody resulted in maliciously changing his « Allegria! » in « Allergia! » (allergy). Bongorno was nicknamed "SuperMike" and "Telemike".
Sources: English, Italian and Fench Wikipedia, IMDB.
